Daily Digest 28 August

28-08-2008

by Deirdre McArdle

Hamburg court upholds Ryanair injunction | Roaming prices drop again

A Hamburg Court has ruled to uphold Ryanair's injunction against so-called screenscraper website Vtours.de, which had been selling Ryanair tickets to German consumers with inflated hidden mark-ups, according to Ryanair. Vtours.de had appealed against Ryanair's original injunction and the case was heard in the Hamburg Court on 21 August. In Thursday's judgement, the Hamburg Court has confirmed that Ryanair's injunction remains in place. "We welcome this latest successful Hamburg Court decision against the Vtours.de screenscraper/ticket-tout website. Ryanair is continuing to cancel bookings made through this unauthorised ticket-tout website, and has called on the European Commission, as well as national governments, to take action to prevent this illegal and unlawful mis-selling to consumers. Sadly, we are still waiting for the European Commission to take any action to protect consumers, but we live in hope," said Ryanair's Jim Callaghan.

Students at Caritas College in Ballyfermot, Dublin, will be presented with a batch of electronic books by publisher Gill & Macmillan on 3 September. A group of 18 first-year students will receive the devices, which will contain the textbooks and workbooks for six of their core subjects, along with an English dictionary and 50 novels (which come as standard on the e-books). This is a pilot project by the educational book publisher, and the idea behind it is to relieve the burden of carrying heavy books from students, while assessing how well students interact with the technology.

From 30 August the price ceiling for making and receiving calls while abroad will fall from EUR0.49 to EUR0.46 per minute and from EUR0.24 to EUR0.22 per minute, respectively. These price reductions, which are the result of the EU Roaming Regulation, will apply in all 27 Member States. Prices for roaming calls will go down a last time on 30 August 2009 to EUR0.43 per minute for making calls and to EUR0.19 per minute for receiving calls. Despite the good news for consumers making and receiving calls while abroad, the issue of roaming texts and data services is still up in the air. "The further reduction of the Eurotariff on 30 August will reaffirm the trend for lower roaming prices. The next challenge is now to bring about a Single Market for roaming text messages and data services. I count on the French Presidency and on the European Parliament to help the Commission solve this problem very soon," said Viviane Reding, EU Telecoms Commissioner.

Network equipment maker Cisco has acquired e-mail and calendaring software vendor PostPath for USD215 million. Industry commentators are seeing the move as an attempt by Cisco to compete with Microsoft in both e-mail and online collaboration markets. PostPath's software will be combined with Cisco's WebEx video-conferencing product, the company said in a statement. The purchase is expected to be completed by the end of October, according to Cisco.

Apple iPhone users have discovered a way to by-pass the device's passcode procedures. The hole, which was first revealed on MacRumors.com and then verified by Gizmodo, occurs when the user hits the "emergency call button" on the iPhone's passcode entry screen. This brings up a dial pad for placing a call in an emergency situation; however, it also enables the use of the iPhone's "home" button as normal. The home button is set to bring up the owner's "favorites" list and enables an unauthorised user to access a number of other features on the phone such as contacts and voicemail. According to Gizmodo, Apple is working on a fix for the hole.

Microsoft has signed an agreement with camera maker Nikon to cross-license patents relating to Nikon's digital cameras and other consumer products from each company. The agreement will allow the companies to use each other's intellectual property to develop new features and products, the pair said. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, but the parties indicated that Microsoft is being compensated by Nikon. Microsoft and Nikon have collaborated in the past.